Investigation of the Relationship between the STEM Awareness and Questioning Skills of Pre-Service Teachers

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the relationship between pre-service form, elementary mathematics and elementary science teacher’s STEM awareness and questioning skills. In addition to this aim, whether differences existed or not was also investigated in terms of the gender, class level and department variables. A total of 195 pre-service teachers participated in the study from the 3rd and 4thyears in the fall semester of the academic year of 2019-2020. The STEM Awareness and Questioning Skills Scales were used in this correlation study. Non-parametric tests were used in data analysis. For the STEM awareness positive opinion dimension, statistically significant differences were found in favour of the 4thyear participants. For the questioning skills knowledge control dimension, a statistically significant difference was found according to the gender in favour of the male participants. A medium-level positive relationship was found between the STEM awareness positive opinion dimension and the questioning skills dimensions, while a low-level relationship was found between the negative opinions and questioning skills dimensions.

STEM Literacy of Students in Vocational Education

“…When the four subject areas, S-Science, T-Technology, E-Engineering and M-Mathematics, are integrated, it is called STEM education. Many studies have concurred with the idea to foster an interest in the STEM field (Çetin, 2021;Vu, Harshbarger, Crow, & Henderson, 2019). STEM education has benefits for students, such as increasing achievement and improving attitudes, motivation, creating interest toward STEM disciplines, and increasing higher order thinking skills.…”